45/47 travels to China this week for a State Visit which was delayed due to the outbreak of the Iranian Crisis, and I would expect it was REALLY hoped that the situation successfully resolved in the US’s favour by now. But patently it hasn’t.
Now I fully expect 45/47 will be chockas full of confidence that he holds the cards, that he’s the best negotiator in the world (ever) and that US prestige is star spanglly untarnished under his Administration. After all, that what all his advisors and apostles tell him.
IMHO none of that premise holds true and he REALLY needs a win to avoid/minimise a mid-terms flame-out and a third impeachment.
So, the scenario.
The Chinese roll out State Visit plus with all the golden trimmings.
Flatter, faun, indulge, impress. Bigly. Hugely.
Then on the closing day with 45/47 full to the gunnels of hubris make him a private offer:
China will intercede with Iran, get them to accept a deal that is measurably better than the JCPOA including free access for international shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, and an agreement that all existing Iranian stocks of refined nuclear material are removed to Russia/China or other agreed locality;
China will intercede with North Korea to get them to halt their nuclear program and allow international inspectors to monitor;
China will intercede with North Korea to return to their prior policy of peaceful reunification, and to chair a summit with the single agenda item of a Permanent Peace Treaty for the Korean Peninsula;
China agrees to liquidate in a market sensitive manner their holding of US Treasury securities;
The US agrees to immediately cease protection of Taiwan and to facilitate the irrevocable annexation and reunification of the territory with the Chinese mainland;
Conditional on US agreement to the points above, China will nominate and actively lobby for Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize;
The offer will expire once Airforce 1 begins to taxi for take-off and will be emphatically denied as a Trumpian fantasy if not accepted in it’s entirety or any details of the offer are leaked.
So what would 45/47 take to stake his legacy … the money or the gun?
I don’t think China has the power to get North Korea to give up their nukes. Also I doubt Iran would give them up to appease China either. I get the impression that China needs Iran more than the other way around.
Both Iran and North Korea know that nuclear weapons and ICBMs are their ultimate defense against regime change, and they will not give them up.
Also south Korea doesn’t want reunification since it will cost them trillions of dollars to repair the North’s economy, when South Korea is already facing its own economic problems. Reunification would be like asking you to support your disabled, mentally unstable brother when you are struggling with your own life.
Also nobody would or should trust Russia to protect Iranian nuclear materials.
China wants Taiwan, sure, but I think that’s a way higher price than they’d be willing to pay. Especially not to a patsy like Trump, whom they can easily negotiate down to a metaphorical stick of gum.
North Korea would probably threaten to nuke China if they tried that. The superpowers have worked hard to make it clear that having nuclear weapons is the only real way to deter aggression from them; China demanding that NK give up its nukes might as well be a formal announcement that they intend to conquer it and kill its leaders.
Too much of that deal relies on things to happen in the future. A promise from Trump not to intercede on behalf of Taiwan is worthless. Trump makes deals based on what he can get right now. I think the only thing Xi has to offer Trump is an announcement that China will work to open the Strait of Hormuz. Trump could then puff out his chest and brag about how he was opening the Strait, ending the war, and winning, winning, winning.
I’m not sure what Trump has to offer Xi. Any promise of future action is worthless. Maybe Trump could lower tariffs, and China can hope that he gets distracted by a bright, shiny object before he raises them again. China may even want the Strait reopened and it would cost them nothing to let Trump take the credit for something they would have done on their own.
This. Any plan that hinges on making a deal with Trump is fundamentally hamstrung by his complete untrustworthiness, irrationality, and deep unwillingness to do anything that benefits anyone else. It doesn’t really leave him with much to offer.
OK, if the deal could be done cheaper, fine.
I’m offering the deal of the century and putting plenty of grease on the table to facilitate it. But none of the factors in the “proposed deal” actually cost China very much at all. Iran resolution benefits them. Reining in DPRK suits them. They don’t want Korean re-unification. But maintaining DPRK as a buffer without the military bluster suits them.
Sovereignty over Taiwan is a very big deal.
The Chinese leadership would recognise that if the window of opportunity to unify China existed, it would not extend past the 47s term, maybe even beyond this year.
As to the validity of any assurance provided, who in the prevailing US administration would stop 45/47? He announces that deal and that as a consequence the material benefits of peace in the Middle East, kudos of peace on the Korean Peninsular, along with a significant reduction in the US foreign owned debt had been accrued by the US with negligible monetary cost, delivered prior to the mid-terms and only the diplomatic expense of conceding/affirming Chinese hegemony within it’s hemisphere.
He would; he routinely betrays the agreements he makes. If China benefits from the deal in Trump’s Manichean winner-and-loser view of the world that means Trump is the loser, and he won’t accept that. If Trump makes a deal with China then China has to be seen to lose to satisfy Trump.
Trump’s promises of future cooperation are worthless, but you’re also expecting him to make an announcement that he is making a concession. Trump doesn’t do that. He won’t say “in return for opening the Strait of Hormuz, I have agreed not to defend Taiwan.”
I think it’s more likely that Xi will tell Trump how much China has done for him, and how lucrative it will be for the U.S. (which Trump will take to mean himself) for the U.S. and China to form even closer ties. Taiwan hasn’t done anything for him, and they haven’t been paying their fair share of the cost of the U.S. defending them. Those may start to show up as talking points in future Trump speeches.
Now THAT is interesting. Xi knows how easily manipulated Trump is by pomp and frivolous flattery. If he’s not even bothering with that, it’s a sign that he thinks Trump doesn’t even matter any more.
China can’t make any of these things happen, their only hope would be to convince TFG that they can while getting him to abandon Taiwan. ‘Facilitating the irrevocable annexation and reunification of the territory with the Chinese mainland’ most certainly isn’t going to be bloodless, regardless of whether the US abandons Taiwan or not.
That’s the problem with ‘rogue states’ like North Korea and Iran. They’re so isolated internationally that nobody has any real substantive diplomatic sway over them. Add to that the fact that China most certainly does not want a unified Korea that is an ally of the US on its border. Though with how much of a disaster TFG’s international politics have been, them being a US ally might not be a problem for China by the end of his administration.
Or a sign that Xi knows he holds all the cards and Trump has none. I predict Trump will return from this trip with all the usual lies and bluster about how he “won” but anything the US may gain from this will only be because it happened to coincide with China’s interests.
Yeah, the Ukraine War has drastically changed the likelihood of success of a potential invasion, with or without US help.
China was on track to have the military capability to actually pull off an invasion, but drone warfare has completely changed the picture.
Of course, they still have enough missiles to devastate Taiwan, but getting boots on the ground is going to be much harder.
Although Trump may sell out Taiwan, Japan has declared that a military takeover by China is against its national interests, and continues to strengthen its military capabilities.
That depends on whether Taiwan has invested in drones much.
Also, the prospect of the US successfully defending Taiwan even if it chooses has dropped radically thanks to Trump throwing away so many military resources on his vanity war against Iran. Xi has a lot less reason to care about the US military thanks to that.